Stina is an associate professor in mathematics who primarily teaches first-year college algebra. Stina attends a workshop hosted by the Center for Teaching and Learning on promising practices in student evaluation. Stina finds the workshop interesting and challenging. While she is inspired by the novel formative and summative assessment strategies proposed by her colleagues, she is ambivalent about changing her curriculum and pedagogical approach, which she has slowly and thoughtfully crafted for more than 10 years.
Stina’s current approach is indicative of the way she was taught, as she did not receive formal pedagogical training in mathematics education. However, she is happy with her results and feels proud of her student evaluations of teaching. The content of the workshop challenges many of her practices and underscores that some of the long-held evaluation traditions in mathematics education disproportionately privilege white, male and high-socioeconomic learners.
Stina decides to reach out to the Center for Teaching and Learning staff for additional support. She is assigned a peer mentor and course design coach and engages in a yearlong reflection on her curriculum and pedagogy. She engages in classroom observations as well as bi-weekly reflection sessions with her coach. Her process includes open experimentation with her practices, self-study on evidenced-based practices, and ongoing feedback with her students.
- The Issue: Stina is intrigued by teaching innovations presented by her colleagues, but ambivalent about changing curriculum and instructional practices she has refined over the course of a decade.
- The Deliberation: Motivated by evidence that her current practices may exacerbate education inequity, Stina seeks guidance and resources from colleagues and spends a year reflecting on and refining her practice.
- The Growth: Stina is able to transform her approach through self-guided learning and collaboration and realize some of the practices introduced at the beginning of her exploration.